DUBLIN, Ohio, USA, 18 January 2011—OCLC and the HathiTrust have developed a unique WorldCat Local user interface for discovery of items accessible through the HathiTrust Digital Library. The WorldCat Local prototype (http://hathitrust.worldcat.org) for the HathiTrust Digital Library was designed and implemented by both organizations in close cooperation as a means to further develop a shared digital library infrastructure. The WorldCat Local interface for the HathiTrust Digital Library is based on the WorldCat database, and will run along with the current HathiTrust catalog during the prototype testing period.

As a digital repository for the nation's great research libraries, the HathiTrust Digital Library brings together the massive digitized collections of partner institutions. HathiTrust offers libraries a means to archive and provide access to their digital content, whether scanned volumes, special collections, or born-digital materials. The representation of these resources in digital form offers expanded opportunities for innovative use in research, teaching and learning.

OCLC and HathiTrust have been working together to increase online visibility and accessibility of the digital collections by creating WorldCat records describing the content and linking to the collections via WorldCat.org and WorldCat Local. The creation of the unique public interface through WorldCat Local is the next step to offer enhanced access to this vital collection.

"HathiTrust benefits greatly from this partnership in that the collaborative development has enabled the creation of a new means of discovering HathiTrust holdings while simultaneously integrating these holdings into the larger world of library holdings made discoverable by OCLC," said John Wilkin, Executive Director of the HathiTrust.

HathiTrust Digital Library records are discoverable through the separate WorldCat Local interface, as well as through WorldCat.org.

"OCLC and the HathiTrust have been working together closely in this shared development project to facilitate access to these valuable digital materials," said Chip Nilges, OCLC Vice President, Business Development. "This collaboration leverages OCLC's extensive work in the area of resource discovery with the HathiTrust's considerable expertise and infrastructure with respect to the preservation of scholarly resources."

OCLC and HathiTrust are seeking feedback from users of the new HathiTrust public interface through WorldCat Local. Feedback from the user community and usability assessments will inform future development of the HathiTrust Digital Library catalog.

About HathiTrust

Launched in 2008, HathiTrust has a growing membership currently comprising 52 partners. Over the last two years, the partners have contributed more than 8 million volumes to the digital library, digitized from their library collections through various means, including Google and Internet Archive digitization and in-house initiatives. More than 2 million of the contributed volumes are in the public domain and freely available on the Web.

About OCLC

Founded in 1967, OCLC is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing library costs. More than 72,000 libraries in 170 countries have used OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend, preserve and manage library materials. Researchers, students, faculty, scholars, professional librarians and other information seekers use OCLC services to obtain bibliographic, abstract and full-text information when and where they need it. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the world’s largest online database for discovery of library resources. Search WorldCat.org on the Web. For more information, visit the OCLC Web site.

OCLC, WorldCat, WorldCat Local and WorldCat.org are trademarks/service marks of OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. Third-party product, service and business names are trademarks/service marks of their respective owners.